When it's time for an asteroid mission, it will probably be robotic.
ARM is primarily a robotic sample-return mission. The intent is to send a robotic system to intercept and literally bag a small, 5-7m, NEO asteroid, then using ion drive bring it almost all the way back to Earth.
Only the actual sampling will be performed by humans, through slits in the bag with a pick'n'reach tool. Hence in order to create a destination for SLS/Orion that is within the system's incredibly limited capability, the asteroid will be returned to the highest orbit that the SLS/Orion system can reach (lunar orbit) in order to pretend the $30+ billion that will have been spent on SLS/Orion development by then has somehow all been worth it.
It's a bit like sending out a 19th century whaling crew to catch and tow an iceberg back to New York, so that an alternative retarded version of Adm Peary could stomp around on it, waving a toy ice axe, shouting, "I are exploring, derp!" while setting fire to piles of money to keep warm.
The robotic part is a useful mission, IMO. The human part is of course not only a waste, but a waste intended to justify a greater waste. Spending even part of the remaining $20 billion SLS/Orion development on a series of entirely robotic asteroid and comet sample return missions would vastly outweigh the returns from the single ARM human mission.
Aside,
"is one step toward a proposed (mid-2020s) mission to actually visit a captured asteroid in lunar orbit. [...] their mission also includes a 10-minute communications delay, to simulate the high-latency communications with mission control that would be inevitable for an actual asteroid mission."
The moon is 1 1/3 light-seconds away. Hence a 2 2/3 second round-trip delay. Say 3 seconds with relaying. SLS/Orion isn't capable of reaching 5 light-minutes away from Earth. Derp.
Good point, thesupraman forgot one additional MS TCO assumption:
"There's no ongoing transitional costs from Microsoft upgrades."
Microsoft only compares with a stable Win/Office environment. But often these transitions to Linux/FOSS are made in the face of a major Windows/Office upgrade. So the comparison is "Transition to FOSS vs Transition to different MS-ware".
Yes, the SSL will start at 70t and move forward to (maybe) 155t.
The 70 ton version won't be finished until at least 2021, work won't start on the >130t version until after 2032. The "Block 0" version might fly by 2017 (if, the GAO reports, they receive more funding.)
Falcon Heavy likewise is supposed to fly by 2015. So allowing for the usual SpaceX delays, probably around 2017/2018, same as SLS-Block-0.
The difference is, Falcon Heavy will cost the tax payers almost nothing to develop and less than $100m per launch.
The SLS will cost around $3b/yr to develop, and at least $500m per launch (ignoring most costs. This was the same kind of number they used for the Shuttle, but which actually cost $1.5b per launch.)
53 tonnes for $100m. Versus 65 tons (about 58 tonnes) for $500m + $12b dev. Or 70 tons (about 63 tonnes) for $500m + $20b dev.
So you could launch 5 FH's for the official "launch cost" of SLS-Block-I. So over 250 tonnes versus about 63 tonnes. And you'd save $20 billion in development costs that could instead be spent on mission hardware instead of launch hardware.
Some things are better built and have less wastage in large intergated units on the ground than assempbled in space.
Define "wastage". If you are spending $3b/yr just to develop the launcher, how much do you have left to develop the mission hardware?
If your launch costs are a tiny fraction of SLS, you can launch more hardware, more often. Which means you can do a lot of testing on orbit. Which lets you incrementally develop your hardware (instead of the current method of one-off, must-not-fail process.) Build a little, test a little. Let your engineers learn their craft before you design the final version. (I wonder how much would have been saved on JWST, had they built multiple versions, starting simple with each adding a single novel capacity. Instead of trying to throw everything into the first and only, must-not-fail version.)
With SLS, you can't afford to build anything to actually launch. With SpaceX, you get to ignore launch costs and just develop mission hardware. And once you get into that frame of mind, you use the same low-cost development model for everything, saving even more money.
How about lobbying for increased funding to NASA for the things it needs,
Two reasons. 1) NASA's funding has been relatively constant, as a percentage of the Federal budget, for 30 years. Lobbying for more funding has resulted in precisely zero effect.
2) It would be worthless giving NASA more funding if it is incapable of managing the funding it already receives, additional funding would be entirely absorbed by the flagship programs, such as SLS/Orion, or on the science side JWST. NASA could already increase the amount of mission it buys with its existing budget by spending it better. And that agency would actually deserve more funding.
And for the record, I wasn't calling for more funding for COTS/CC. (Especially since COTS is finished development and is operational.) But for more programs to be designed like COTS. Multi-vendor, fixed-funding fixed-goal, payment-on-delivery programs. Eliminating the cost-plus model. Eliminating the single massive program that everyone throws their pet dev project into.
For example: There are calls to replace the Russian-made RD-180 engine on Atlas V. This will inevitably end up being an eight year, sole-source, multi-billion dollar, FAR (cost plus) contract for ULA (subcontracting to Aerojet, subcontracting to...) to develop a local version of the RD-180. Every spec will be spelled out in excruciating detail, even though the USAF will invariably approve variations due to the resulting engine under-performing. Probably late and over-budget. All to replicate a surplus 1960's Russian engine that operates in a way US engines traditionally don't.
If, otoh, the same funding was used in a COTS-style multi-vendor program, you would end up with 3 or more brand new engine families, delivering a hell of a lot faster than 8 years, with multiple redundancy for vendor failure. This would not only solve the actual problem (being dependent on Russian engines), it would stimulate a whole new generation of low-cost rocket development, and a whole new generation of engine-development engineers. That knowledge-base could then be set a new task of building the next generation of (say, larger) rocket engines.
I only ask because Singapore Airlines said right after the shootdown that: "Customers may wish to note that Singapore Airlines flights are not using Ukraine airspace."
Flightradar24. Singapore Air Flight SQ351, 2014-07-17.
SA lied and are being shredded in social media for that comment. Finnair did exactly the same thing. Both have done the "if anyone was offended" non-apology and claimed they were referring to future flights.
No. I'm pointing how how empty it is today, compared to the airspace around it. Obviously keeping such a big chunk of airspace empty is something that the whole airline industry would want to avoid like the plague.
If Nyder had his way, all of Ukraine, plus Russian and European airspace near Ukraine, plus Iran, Iraq, Syria , Israel, Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, the Pakistan/Indian border, Kashmir, the Strait of Hormuz, Sea of Japan, South China Sea, etc etc, would all be kept clear of civilian air traffic at all times.
And then he'd complain about the density of air traffic in the remaining few routes, and the inherent safety risk.
That's the same point looneycyborg was attempting to make
You might not have realised that Loony was invoking or just naively repeating certain conspiracy theory Shibboleths, "the plane was a set up, why would civilians be in a warzone?", "whose interests were really served by accusing Russia?" etc.
NASA, other than a place for research money to go to die.
NASA still produces excellent research. PICA heat shield and the FasTrac experimental rocket which SpaceX developed into PICA-X and Merlin 1. HL-20, which became Dreamchaser. Transhab, became Bigelow. And so on.
It's on the operations side that they suck. Shuttle. ISS. Constellation/Area. SLS. Orion.
NASA would be an amazing place if you could divert the $3b from SLS/Orion and the $3b from ISS into aerospace research and competitive programs like COTS/Commercial Crew.
The commander of the eastern Ukrainian militia is a Moscow native and "former" GRU (Russian military intelligence) officer with no ties to Ukraine prior to the war.
No-one disputes that. Not on either side, Ukraine or Russian. The only dispute is over that "former". The Ukrainian government says he's still an active duty officer taking direct orders. They even know the name of his immediate GRU commanding officer in Moscow. Russia claimed he "retired" a month before he entered Ukraine.
The "Prime Minister" of the break away territory is a Moscow native. He ran a right wing news service for several years, with the protection and support of the Russian government. He was widely believed to be FSB. He had no ties to Ukraine before the war. He was sent into Crimea as a political "consultant" on behalf of Moscow during crisis there, then "retired" and moved on to eastern Ukraine.
No-on disputes any of that. The only dispute is whether he's FSB and whether he's still working for the FSB.
It seems that it's only really the western media which persists in treating it like a spontaneous uprising by local (ethnic-Russian) Ukrainians.
There's also question of motivation. Why would soldiers waste expensive missiles for some irrelevant passenger plane?
To shoot down Ukrainian military aircraft. They had already shot down a Ukrainian transport plane and a Ukrainian fighter within the previous week. They were on a roll.
Why would be there a plane over a warzone in the first place? That just doesn't make sense.
It was a major air route. There were over 50 civilian airliners over eastern Ukraine at the time MH-17 was shot down. And about 24 aircraft flew through the precise area MH-17 was hit, over the previous day. There was a Singapore Airlines jet close enough to MH-17 at the time for the pilots to see it explode.
Aircraft are currently flying over northern Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Israel...
reverting to a past we had here on earth by living in caves
Ancient humans didn't "live in caves". Caves are just especially good as preserving signs of human activity. You'll note the decided lack of cave dwelling amongst remnant hunter gatherers in the modern world.
Interesting differences. In the Iranian-655 incident, the US admitted it's actions. And Russia used it as an excuse to demand that the US withdraw from the region.
In the Siberian-1812 incident, Russia immediately went into cover-up mode - along with Ukraine, it's then-ally - with Putin claiming that it wasn't even technically possible for the missile to hit.
Why do people persist with the pretence that these are local separatists merely being armed by Russia. They are Russian military, lead by a "former" GRU officer with no ties to the region except his current operation and who reports directly to his HQ in Moscow.
Likewise, mobile SAM systems, including the Buk missile platform, is not like a MANPAD or RPG, where you can spend an hour or two showing the locals how to point'n'shoot. You need 10-12 people, in multiple vehicles, all with proper training. These are not operated by locals "with Russian assistance", they are operated by the Russian military.
and b) my excuse was, "I don't read that email account any more."
Apparently the actual excuse was "Went to my junk filter lol."
[Someone else pointed out that sony.com itself was only renewed 4 days before expiry, and only for two years. What, are you worried about paying too far in advance in case the company decides to stop using the internet and you can't get your $35 back? I mean, fuck.]
Coming from a small business background, sometimes this is the only way to deal with a corporate customer. Or you simply will not get paid.
Being a bookkeeper (and a pedantic nerd who pays things on time), I've always found it stunning how little respect corporations have for their own accounts payables and the consequences of not paying accounts properly. The only businesses which are worse are law firms.
Theres generally no expectation of privacy; the email account is company property, sitting on a company server, on company storage. In what universe would the company not have rights to it?
There are countries that do give employees an "expectation of privacy" from employers snooping on email accounts (& phone calls, toilet breaks, etc), even though those are hosted on company equipment. And since it's the law/right/reg/ruling/etc, a mere employment agreement or company policy can't usurp that. The US is unusual in that it not only doesn't have anything like that, it so doesn't have it to such a degree that people can't even imagine having it. It's funny that the master-servant relationship is the default assumption in the US.
However, even those laws or regs would still only apply during the employee's tenure, not after they leave. And would have big fat exceptions for transferring job-title and task-title based email addresses (admin@fatass.com, renewals@fatass.com).
You want to assign someone to keep an eye on things that can be fully automated?
It's a basic accounts payable function, so yes.
Someone has to have authority to maintain and modify the automated payment schedule, otherwise either anything can be added/removed or nothing can be added/removed. Moreso, someone within their accounts payable department should be specifically responsible for all these particular kinds of payments: trademark fees, site ownership fess, official registrations, patent renewal fees, etc. That person should have lost their job today.
I'm a bookkeeper, I would lose my job if my employer's domain was cut off because a) I didn't pay the account, and b) my excuse was, "<shrug>I don't read that email account any more."
Hell, SOE is a large enough corporation in its own right that they should have someone whose sole job is to make sure contact information at vendors is up to date in response to structural changes and staff movements, as well as checking email accounts for employees who are no longer at the company or divisions that no longer exist to ensure that critical info isn't being lost. And an entirely separate person (but working in the same section) whose job is to make sure SOE's internal contact & billing information is updated for all of the major clients, to ensure that SOE itself is also sending accounts to the right companies/divisions and contacting the right people at those companies, to prevent SOE from causing similar embarrassments to SOE's major clients/partners/etc.
And Sony Corporation (the parent) should have at least one person whose sole job is to liaise between those "Contact Managers (internal/external)" in the different subsidiaries and major divisions of Sony, to ensure that the whole group is up to date.
Do you have any idea how that's gonna look on your quarter report?
Too small to appear as a rounding off error in the smallest item on the balance sheet of the smallest subsidiary of the Sony Online Entertainment division of the Sony Group?
$35/yr, 100yrs? $3500. For their top level global nameserver.
Slashdot Mirror
When it's time for an asteroid mission, it will probably be robotic.
ARM is primarily a robotic sample-return mission. The intent is to send a robotic system to intercept and literally bag a small, 5-7m, NEO asteroid, then using ion drive bring it almost all the way back to Earth.
Only the actual sampling will be performed by humans, through slits in the bag with a pick'n'reach tool. Hence in order to create a destination for SLS/Orion that is within the system's incredibly limited capability, the asteroid will be returned to the highest orbit that the SLS/Orion system can reach (lunar orbit) in order to pretend the $30+ billion that will have been spent on SLS/Orion development by then has somehow all been worth it.
It's a bit like sending out a 19th century whaling crew to catch and tow an iceberg back to New York, so that an alternative retarded version of Adm Peary could stomp around on it, waving a toy ice axe, shouting, "I are exploring, derp!" while setting fire to piles of money to keep warm.
The robotic part is a useful mission, IMO. The human part is of course not only a waste, but a waste intended to justify a greater waste. Spending even part of the remaining $20 billion SLS/Orion development on a series of entirely robotic asteroid and comet sample return missions would vastly outweigh the returns from the single ARM human mission.
Aside,
"is one step toward a proposed (mid-2020s) mission to actually visit a captured asteroid in lunar orbit. [...] their mission also includes a 10-minute communications delay, to simulate the high-latency communications with mission control that would be inevitable for an actual asteroid mission."
The moon is 1 1/3 light-seconds away. Hence a 2 2/3 second round-trip delay. Say 3 seconds with relaying. SLS/Orion isn't capable of reaching 5 light-minutes away from Earth. Derp.
Good point, thesupraman forgot one additional MS TCO assumption:
"There's no ongoing transitional costs from Microsoft upgrades."
Microsoft only compares with a stable Win/Office environment. But often these transitions to Linux/FOSS are made in the face of a major Windows/Office upgrade. So the comparison is "Transition to FOSS vs Transition to different MS-ware".
The 70 ton version won't be finished until at least 2021, work won't start on the >130t version until after 2032. The "Block 0" version might fly by 2017 (if, the GAO reports, they receive more funding.)
Falcon Heavy likewise is supposed to fly by 2015. So allowing for the usual SpaceX delays, probably around 2017/2018, same as SLS-Block-0.
The difference is, Falcon Heavy will cost the tax payers almost nothing to develop and less than $100m per launch.
The SLS will cost around $3b/yr to develop, and at least $500m per launch (ignoring most costs. This was the same kind of number they used for the Shuttle, but which actually cost $1.5b per launch.)
53 tonnes for $100m. Versus 65 tons (about 58 tonnes) for $500m + $12b dev. Or 70 tons (about 63 tonnes) for $500m + $20b dev.
So you could launch 5 FH's for the official "launch cost" of SLS-Block-I. So over 250 tonnes versus about 63 tonnes. And you'd save $20 billion in development costs that could instead be spent on mission hardware instead of launch hardware.
Define "wastage". If you are spending $3b/yr just to develop the launcher, how much do you have left to develop the mission hardware?
If your launch costs are a tiny fraction of SLS, you can launch more hardware, more often. Which means you can do a lot of testing on orbit. Which lets you incrementally develop your hardware (instead of the current method of one-off, must-not-fail process.) Build a little, test a little. Let your engineers learn their craft before you design the final version. (I wonder how much would have been saved on JWST, had they built multiple versions, starting simple with each adding a single novel capacity. Instead of trying to throw everything into the first and only, must-not-fail version.)
With SLS, you can't afford to build anything to actually launch. With SpaceX, you get to ignore launch costs and just develop mission hardware. And once you get into that frame of mind, you use the same low-cost development model for everything, saving even more money.
Look for IFF (Identification Friend or Foe).
IFF is a military system. Your link even uses the word "military". It is to prevent you accidentally locking onto your own military aircraft.
It is completely unrelated to the civilian transponder system.
How about lobbying for increased funding to NASA for the things it needs,
Two reasons. 1) NASA's funding has been relatively constant, as a percentage of the Federal budget, for 30 years. Lobbying for more funding has resulted in precisely zero effect.
2) It would be worthless giving NASA more funding if it is incapable of managing the funding it already receives, additional funding would be entirely absorbed by the flagship programs, such as SLS/Orion, or on the science side JWST. NASA could already increase the amount of mission it buys with its existing budget by spending it better. And that agency would actually deserve more funding.
And for the record, I wasn't calling for more funding for COTS/CC. (Especially since COTS is finished development and is operational.) But for more programs to be designed like COTS. Multi-vendor, fixed-funding fixed-goal, payment-on-delivery programs. Eliminating the cost-plus model. Eliminating the single massive program that everyone throws their pet dev project into.
For example: There are calls to replace the Russian-made RD-180 engine on Atlas V. This will inevitably end up being an eight year, sole-source, multi-billion dollar, FAR (cost plus) contract for ULA (subcontracting to Aerojet, subcontracting to...) to develop a local version of the RD-180. Every spec will be spelled out in excruciating detail, even though the USAF will invariably approve variations due to the resulting engine under-performing. Probably late and over-budget. All to replicate a surplus 1960's Russian engine that operates in a way US engines traditionally don't.
If, otoh, the same funding was used in a COTS-style multi-vendor program, you would end up with 3 or more brand new engine families, delivering a hell of a lot faster than 8 years, with multiple redundancy for vendor failure. This would not only solve the actual problem (being dependent on Russian engines), it would stimulate a whole new generation of low-cost rocket development, and a whole new generation of engine-development engineers. That knowledge-base could then be set a new task of building the next generation of (say, larger) rocket engines.
I only ask because Singapore Airlines said right after the shootdown that:
"Customers may wish to note that Singapore Airlines flights are not using Ukraine airspace."
Flightradar24. Singapore Air Flight SQ351, 2014-07-17.
SA lied and are being shredded in social media for that comment. Finnair did exactly the same thing. Both have done the "if anyone was offended" non-apology and claimed they were referring to future flights.
Strelkov/Girkin's military career would be GRU. His domestic "anti-terror" work would be with the FSB. His current work would be GRU.
No. I'm pointing how how empty it is today, compared to the airspace around it. Obviously keeping such a big chunk of airspace empty is something that the whole airline industry would want to avoid like the plague.
If Nyder had his way, all of Ukraine, plus Russian and European airspace near Ukraine, plus Iran, Iraq, Syria , Israel, Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, the Pakistan/Indian border, Kashmir, the Strait of Hormuz, Sea of Japan, South China Sea, etc etc, would all be kept clear of civilian air traffic at all times.
And then he'd complain about the density of air traffic in the remaining few routes, and the inherent safety risk.
Sure, even if common sense tells you that flying over a warzone is stupid as all fuck, it's okay because other people do it all the time!!!!
Clue
That's the same point looneycyborg was attempting to make
You might not have realised that Loony was invoking or just naively repeating certain conspiracy theory Shibboleths, "the plane was a set up, why would civilians be in a warzone?", "whose interests were really served by accusing Russia?" etc.
NASA, other than a place for research money to go to die.
NASA still produces excellent research. PICA heat shield and the FasTrac experimental rocket which SpaceX developed into PICA-X and Merlin 1. HL-20, which became Dreamchaser. Transhab, became Bigelow. And so on.
It's on the operations side that they suck. Shuttle. ISS. Constellation/Area. SLS. Orion.
NASA would be an amazing place if you could divert the $3b from SLS/Orion and the $3b from ISS into aerospace research and competitive programs like COTS/Commercial Crew.
It's one thing to keep an open mind, it's another to let the geese run around in there.
The commander of the eastern Ukrainian militia is a Moscow native and "former" GRU (Russian military intelligence) officer with no ties to Ukraine prior to the war.
No-one disputes that. Not on either side, Ukraine or Russian. The only dispute is over that "former". The Ukrainian government says he's still an active duty officer taking direct orders. They even know the name of his immediate GRU commanding officer in Moscow. Russia claimed he "retired" a month before he entered Ukraine.
The "Prime Minister" of the break away territory is a Moscow native. He ran a right wing news service for several years, with the protection and support of the Russian government. He was widely believed to be FSB. He had no ties to Ukraine before the war. He was sent into Crimea as a political "consultant" on behalf of Moscow during crisis there, then "retired" and moved on to eastern Ukraine.
No-on disputes any of that. The only dispute is whether he's FSB and whether he's still working for the FSB.
It seems that it's only really the western media which persists in treating it like a spontaneous uprising by local (ethnic-Russian) Ukrainians.
and the Ukraine government doesn't have that kind of hardware in the first place.
Nonsense. Ukraine has many Buk short range SAM systems (like the one that killed MH-17.) They also have S-200 long range SAM systems.
There's also question of motivation. Why would soldiers waste expensive missiles for some irrelevant passenger plane?
To shoot down Ukrainian military aircraft. They had already shot down a Ukrainian transport plane and a Ukrainian fighter within the previous week. They were on a roll.
Why would be there a plane over a warzone in the first place? That just doesn't make sense.
It was a major air route. There were over 50 civilian airliners over eastern Ukraine at the time MH-17 was shot down. And about 24 aircraft flew through the precise area MH-17 was hit, over the previous day. There was a Singapore Airlines jet close enough to MH-17 at the time for the pilots to see it explode.
Aircraft are currently flying over northern Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Israel...
reverting to a past we had here on earth by living in caves
Ancient humans didn't "live in caves". Caves are just especially good as preserving signs of human activity. You'll note the decided lack of cave dwelling amongst remnant hunter gatherers in the modern world.
Interesting differences. In the Iranian-655 incident, the US admitted it's actions. And Russia used it as an excuse to demand that the US withdraw from the region.
In the Siberian-1812 incident, Russia immediately went into cover-up mode - along with Ukraine, it's then-ally - with Putin claiming that it wasn't even technically possible for the missile to hit.
You don't "borrow" a mobile SAM system. It has to be operated by trained personnel. In this case, by Russian military personnel.
Russia, who has been arming the rebels
"Russia, which is the rebels."
Why do people persist with the pretence that these are local separatists merely being armed by Russia. They are Russian military, lead by a "former" GRU officer with no ties to the region except his current operation and who reports directly to his HQ in Moscow.
Likewise, mobile SAM systems, including the Buk missile platform, is not like a MANPAD or RPG, where you can spend an hour or two showing the locals how to point'n'shoot. You need 10-12 people, in multiple vehicles, all with proper training. These are not operated by locals "with Russian assistance", they are operated by the Russian military.
One missile control console
I don't really see how it would help at all in the event of a missile attack, either.
By showing that it wasn't anything else.
By ensuring the data is recovered even if people who want to cover up the crime control the site and take black boxes.
and b) my excuse was, "I don't read that email account any more."
Apparently the actual excuse was "Went to my junk filter lol."
[Someone else pointed out that sony.com itself was only renewed 4 days before expiry, and only for two years. What, are you worried about paying too far in advance in case the company decides to stop using the internet and you can't get your $35 back? I mean, fuck.]
Coming from a small business background, sometimes this is the only way to deal with a corporate customer. Or you simply will not get paid.
Being a bookkeeper (and a pedantic nerd who pays things on time), I've always found it stunning how little respect corporations have for their own accounts payables and the consequences of not paying accounts properly. The only businesses which are worse are law firms.
Theres generally no expectation of privacy; the email account is company property, sitting on a company server, on company storage. In what universe would the company not have rights to it?
There are countries that do give employees an "expectation of privacy" from employers snooping on email accounts (& phone calls, toilet breaks, etc), even though those are hosted on company equipment. And since it's the law/right/reg/ruling/etc, a mere employment agreement or company policy can't usurp that. The US is unusual in that it not only doesn't have anything like that, it so doesn't have it to such a degree that people can't even imagine having it. It's funny that the master-servant relationship is the default assumption in the US.
However, even those laws or regs would still only apply during the employee's tenure, not after they leave. And would have big fat exceptions for transferring job-title and task-title based email addresses (admin@fatass.com, renewals@fatass.com).
You want to assign someone to keep an eye on things that can be fully automated?
It's a basic accounts payable function, so yes.
Someone has to have authority to maintain and modify the automated payment schedule, otherwise either anything can be added/removed or nothing can be added/removed. Moreso, someone within their accounts payable department should be specifically responsible for all these particular kinds of payments: trademark fees, site ownership fess, official registrations, patent renewal fees, etc. That person should have lost their job today.
I'm a bookkeeper, I would lose my job if my employer's domain was cut off because a) I didn't pay the account, and b) my excuse was, "<shrug>I don't read that email account any more."
Hell, SOE is a large enough corporation in its own right that they should have someone whose sole job is to make sure contact information at vendors is up to date in response to structural changes and staff movements, as well as checking email accounts for employees who are no longer at the company or divisions that no longer exist to ensure that critical info isn't being lost. And an entirely separate person (but working in the same section) whose job is to make sure SOE's internal contact & billing information is updated for all of the major clients, to ensure that SOE itself is also sending accounts to the right companies/divisions and contacting the right people at those companies, to prevent SOE from causing similar embarrassments to SOE's major clients/partners/etc.
And Sony Corporation (the parent) should have at least one person whose sole job is to liaise between those "Contact Managers (internal/external)" in the different subsidiaries and major divisions of Sony, to ensure that the whole group is up to date.
And that person should have lost their job too.
Seriously, fuck that guy.
Do you have any idea how that's gonna look on your quarter report?
Too small to appear as a rounding off error in the smallest item on the balance sheet of the smallest subsidiary of the Sony Online Entertainment division of the Sony Group?
$35/yr, 100yrs? $3500. For their top level global nameserver.